1. What’s New in Version 12

2. New Service Agreement Scheduling tab design makes scheduling much easier. Brand new List Views report capability that opens the door for new searching and reporting in ESC. Dispatch board customizable color coding is now possible using priorities. New Dashboard flow chart to help users understand how to use the software. New dispatch notifications capability that sends your customers an email with dispatch status changes. New vendor price comparing feature allows easy price checks to see which vendor has the best prices. All new SPIFF and Commission tracking capability and reporting. Customization of toolbars to add quick link buttons is now possible in ESC. New Inventory controls allow you to prevent parts from being sold if they are at a zero quantity. New credit card interface for Mobile Apps with Merchant Warehouse. (PCI Complaint) Updated look and functionality for the QuickBooks and Peachtree Connection Wizards. The ESC Sales Person field on invoices now associates and carries over to QuickBooks. Many other updates, mobile enhancement and tweaks to make the software even easier to use.

3. The Schedule Tab of the Enter Service Agreements screen has been completely redesigned to use more of an Outlook style scheduling system. This system is designed to make scheduling tasks faster and easier, while also providing more flexibility to the user. This includes a calendar view that provides at-a- glance dates on which tasks are scheduled to occur.

4. The new list views reports are available in each pull- down menu and from the tool bar and is intended to be the best starting point in searching for data. Use the filters on the bottom half of this screen to customize your list view. You can also create and memorize custom filtered lists that you want to reuse. One of the best new features in ESC Version 12 is the introduction of list views. Lists views allow you to quickly find information that is important to you, such as newly added customers, recently completed dispatches and expiring agreements and more. All of this data can be completely customized so you only see what you want to see, in the order you want to see it. Better yet, once a list is displayed you can search it, print it, export it to Excel, drill down into the record and even mass print or email all the customers on the list.

5. Have you ever wanted to have all of your Service Agreement dispatches stand out, when looking at your dispatch board? Do you need to have all of your high priority calls show red on your dispatch board? Would you like to have all your commercial customers show up in a shade of gray? Well Version 12 now incorporates this much requested feature. One of the cool new features in version 12 is the ability to color code your dispatches. This is done by setting a color to each of your priorities. With the amount of colors the possibilities are almost limitless for setting up color coding. To set this up you will need to choose the dispatch pull down menu and then choose Enter Priorities. This will show you a list of your current priorities, with the ability to edit and create new. When editing, or creating a new priority, you have a pull down menu to choose from a long list of different colors and shades.

6. The new dashboard flow charts and reporting links will make it easy for new users to learn the flow of the ESC software as well as provide them with links to the most common reports and activities for each module of the software. Experienced users will like this area of the program also since you can click on any box in the flow chart to take you directly to that particular screen.

7. You can now use ESC to send an email notification to your customers whenever a dispatch’s status is changed and even customize the email message that they receive. This new feature is easy to use but does require the installation of the ESC Connection Server software. If you are using one of the ESC mobile modules, you already have this software installed and can you this feature immediately. To quickly set it up: 1. Go into Dispatch | Enter Status Codes and determine which status codes you want to use. 2. Once you’ve decided on which status codes to use, double click on one of the status codes then click the Notification tab. 3. Enter a subject and body for the message. You can use the “Insert” button to insert merge codes into the body. The merge codes will automatically pull data from the database and fill it into the message when you send it.

8. ESC now provides you with the ability to compare vendors when it is time to order inventory items. When ordering parts directly from the Dispatch Entry screen you will see a Browse button: this will display comparative information so that you may choose which vendor your parts will be purchased from. In the Purchase Order Entry screen, the compare button will also provide you with pricing information from your various vendors. This is a handy tool that can help to save you money.

9. SPIFF tracking is done by assigning an amount or percentage to a part or billing code. Then, when these are used on sales invoices, the assigned sales person will get the spiff which can be tracked using the commission report. For commission tracking, create the commission code, assign it to your techs in the Enter Technician’s screen and whenever they are assigned to an invoice, you will be able to run a commission report for them. The commission report can be found under: Sales  Reports  Commission Report.

10. When you use ESC Version 12 for the first time, you will get the “Configure Activities Toolbar” prompt to remind you that you can customize the buttons that you see in the toolbar. The new configurable toolbar allows users to display additional buttons that they commonly use by either a small icon or with it’s full descriptive name. Un-checking the “On Toolbar” checkbox will remove a button for further customization.

11. ESC can now be configured to prevent the selling of inventory items if the quantity reaches zero. This prevents negative quantities in your inventory. To turn this feature on, go to Company  System Setup and click on the Inventory tab. You can now change a part number to a different one! To do this, bring up the part in Inventory Entry and then overtype the part number with the new one and then save the change.

12. The “Enter Equipment” screen has now been moved to its own tab in the Customer Entry screen. The Manual Service History screen has also been moved to it’s own tab in the Customer Entry screen. By consolidating these 2 important screens into the customer entry screen, this will provide user with much easier access to data without having to switch to different module screens. Credit ratings can now be color coded and used as an alert to prevent dispatches from being created for specific customers. Once assigned to a customer, the credit rating color coding will be visible within the Dispatch Entry and Qualifications screens. The best part about this feature is that you can prevent a dispatch from being created based upon specific credit ratings assigned to customers!

13. ESC now has the ability to divide the screen amongst various modules. Click on the tab for that screen and drag it to the side of the program to divide your screen in two.

14. You may now add additional shipping methods for purchase orders. Go to: Vendor  Enter Shipping Methods. You can no longer delete a purchase order once items have been received from it. This prevents accidental deletions of active purchase orders. The date of Accounts Payable bills can now be changed when posting to QuickBooks or PeachTree.

15.  You must now click on the “Add New” button in order to enter a new Service Agreement. The agreement will be assigned a number from the new agreement counter, which can be found and set in Company | System Setup | Agreements. You can also add your own number if needed.  A new feature labeled “Order Parts for Posted Dispatches” – found under the Agreements menu – generates a list in the Order Parts screen for all inventory parts posted to dispatches from the Service Agreements module. In the Invoice Tab, the “With Dispatch” option is now called “On Dispatch” in the Month to Post column. Now the invoice items will be added to the dispatch, so that you may create an invoice that encompasses the agreement items and any other items/costs accumulated on that dispatch.

16. Redesigned integration wizards screens now also have the ability to add remaining records when once side has been completely matched up. This eliminates having to manually add each record one at a time. This feature is built into Vendors Customers and employees integration screens.

17. We added the ability to delegate tasks to specific emails on a customer location basis. From within the location tab, you can select for each email address how you want to handle their email tasks: Blank:No emails will be sent to this contact. All: Emails in from every module will be sent to this contact. General: Emails from non-financial modules will be sent to this contact like mail merges. Billing: Emails from financial modules (sales, statements, etc.) will be sent to this contact.

18.  It is now possible to assign an unlimited number of technicians to the dispatch boards.  The Dispatch Schedule Report has been moved from Dispatch | Reports to just the Dispatch menu; it is now called “Search for Dispatch”.  The 7-day dispatch view now only displays 7 days back or forward. This improves the loading time of this display.  It is now possible to make Travel Time billable in ESC. This can be done through System Setup | Dispatch. This option affects the ‘Reg Hours’ value in Sales Invoicing.  New.Net Framework coding allows the dispatch board to improved features.

19.  Added a new report under Sales called Sales Item Summary. This report will give you a count of how many inventory parts, billing codes or history codes were sold in a specific date range.  Added a “Reason Rejected” field to the Quotes screen that only appears if the quote is rejected.  A new “QuickBooks Sales Rep” field will appear in Enter Technicians if QuickBooks is enabled. If you manually enter the Sales Reps initials from QuickBooks into this field, then the Sales Person field will then carry over with the invoice information.  You can now enter multiple line deposits. Go to Banking  Account Register  New  Deposit. (ESC Accounting Module Only)  You can also backload data from any screen into a specific period without affecting financials. This is enabled in Company  System Setup  Accounting  ”Select Backload Period”. (ESC Accounting Module Only)

20.  ESC is now capable of accepting credit cards through Merchant Warehouse – integration is configured in Company | System Setup | Integrations. You must first sign up with Merchant Warehouse to be able to use this capability.  Preferred Vendor has been moved from the Manufacturer tab, to the Vendor tab.  Job Names can be changed in ESC. Note: If you are integrated with QuickBooks or Peachtree, you must update the job name there manually.  You can now attach document to employees.  The ESC navigation pane has been redesigned and can now be reached from only the Dashboard.  The Sales Trend panel of the Dashboard now shows the last 12 months of sales revenue instead of the calendar year.

21.  New “Manage Tech” feature that allows you to view other tech’s calls and reassign the as long as they haven’t been synced to mobile and are in “Pending” status.  You can now view basic customer information without creating a dispatch. The hardware “back” button on Android devices can now be used for navigation rather than using the Back button on the screen.  Added Merchant Warehouse integration for credit card authorizations. You can get credit card readers on Android and iPhone\iPad.  The mobile apps now enforce ESC security on editing\viewing attached documents. If an ESC user does not have the permission to “Edit Attached Documents” in ESC then they will not be able to view the documents in the mobile apps.  Color coding on dispatches (based on priorities) is visible on the mobile app.  Edit equipment – including custom fields. Changes appear in ESC when dispatch is completed. Editing a piece of equipment automatically attaches it to the dispatch.  Labor hours that a tech accumulates now shows on the mobile app.  It is possible to block techs from changing their times from the connection server settings.

22.  We can only integrate ESC with QuickBooks 2008 and higher versions.  We can only integrate ESC with Peachtree 2011 and 2012.  We can only integrate ESC with MapPoint 2009 – 2012.  The Windows 6.5 Mobile PDA Client will not be supported in version 12.  The ESC Mobile Web browser based module has been discontinued in version 12.  The Xora Mobile integration is no longer supported in version 12.